Chapter 9 Luxuria peregrina (Livy 39.6): Spolia and Rome’s Gastronomic Revolution

In: Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia
Authors:
Lidewij van Gils
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Rebecca Henzel
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1 Introduction

As mentioned in the Introduction to this volume, ‘spolia started changing the Roman Republican society from the outside in’ and this process of cultural influence typically followed the phases of material appropriation > objectification > incorporation > transformation. One of the questions posed in the Introduction is ‘what mechanisms of appropriation (or repulsion) can be observed, and what is the active role or agency of the objects themselves in these processes?’1 In this chapter we will focus on the case of the spolia brought to Rome in 187 BCE by Cn. Manlius Vulso after his victory over the Galatians and Livy’s famous claim that these spolia were the beginning of luxuria peregrina (‘luxury from abroad’) including gastronomic refinement in Rome.2 The aim of our contribution is to provide a context for this bold remark, by analyzing on the one hand Livy’s rhetoric and placing it in its contemporary frame, and by looking, on the other hand, at material evidence for gastronomic developments starting in the early second century BCE up until the time of Augustus and Livy.3 By combining the rhetorical and archaeological analyses we are able to give an idea of the gastronomic situation in Livy’s Rome, in which elements from eastern origin are in the last phase of cultural influence, i.e. transformation.4 We will discuss Livy’s ambivalent attitude towards these luxurious elements of foreign origin, which he credits with agency through their excessive desirability, and his historiographical decision to mark 187 BCE as the starting point of foreign luxury in Rome.

In order to provide a context for Livy’s statements about luxurious dining, we first sketch the gastronomic situation of Livy’s own time (section 2) and then discuss a number of literary testimonia and archaeological data on gastronomic developments which started in the second century BCE (section 3). These sections are followed by a rhetorical analysis of Livy’s famous passage Ab urbe condita 39.6 (section 4), after which we combine the lines of argument presented in the sections 2, 3 and 4 with regard to a possible revolution in the culinary arts starting in 187 BCE by the spolia of the Galatians in a conclusion (section 5). In the concluding section, we also discuss how our results are a showcase for the historiographical practice of indicating a specific starting point, origin or person in the distant past for a complex process of cultural transformation. We could label this practice ‘rhetorical anchoring’, since the historiographer marks a specific event or person as the anchor of an innovation.5

2 Livy and the Luxury of His Time

Livy and his contemporaries were accustomed to a Roman gastronomic culture which contained luxurious elements of Hellenistic origin, as their Greek names often made clear: furniture like triclinia (eating-couches), abaci (sideboards) and monopodia (pedestal tables), tableware such as the krater (mixing-vessel) and amphora (vessel) and, of course, ingredients, such as for instance pyrum (pear), cerasus (cherry) and rhombus (flatfish). Moreover, there was a (sub)culture among the elite of extravagant dinner parties in which psaltriae (female dancers) and music could be part of the program.6 Both archaeological findings and literature from the early Roman empire confirm that wealthy Roman citizens reveled in festive meals with a great variety of dishes, appreciated a luxurious ambiance with costly furniture and tableware and also enjoyed performances of song, dance and literature. The host of a dinner party could show his wealth and good taste to his friends and reinforce his network and hence increase his social capital.

An example of such a luxurious lifestyle, which peaked at the end of the republic and the early empire, are the fish farms which formed part of the lavishly decorated villae,7 about which we know both from literary sources and from archaeological evidence. The fish farms are not only interesting because they show an upper-class phenomenon, but also because the huge tanks were the result of a technical innovation, viz. the use of waterproof concrete.8 The tanks were often built into the sea as part of villae maritimae which required huge investment by the owner. Since the fish were probably not always meant for consumption, he would not make much profit. This shows the preoccupation of members of the elite with luxurious and exotic food through which they were able to show off and distinguish themselves from others.

A famous literary example of an over-abundant dinner party is Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis, written probably halfway in the first century CE. The following passage shows how the extravagant freedman Trimalchio treats his astonished guests (31–33):

Dishes for the first course included an ass of Corinthian bronze with two panniers, white olives on one side and black on the other. Over the ass were two pieces of plate, with Trimalchio’s name and the weight of the silver inscribed on the rims. There were some small iron frames shaped like bridges supporting dormice sprinkled with honey and poppy seed. There were steaming hot sausages too, on a silver gridiron with damsons and pomegranate seeds underneath. We were in the middle of these elegant dishes when Trimalchio himself was carried in to the sound of music and set down on a pile of tightly stuffed cushions. (…) After picking his teeth with a silver toothpick, he began: ‘My friends, I wasn’t keen to come into the dining-room yet. But if I stayed away anymore, I would have kept you back, so I’ve deprived myself of all my little pleasures for you. However, you’ll allow me to finish my game’. A boy was at his heels with a board of terebinth wood with glass squares, and I noticed the very last word in luxury – instead of white and black pieces he had gold and silver coins. While he was swearing away like a trooper over his game and we were still on the hors d’oeuvres, a tray was brought in with a basket on it. There sat a wooden hen, its wings spread round it the way hens are when they are broody. Two slaves hurried up and as the orchestra played a tune they began searching through the straw and dug out peahens’ eggs, which they distributed to the guests. (Transl. by Schmeling 2020)

Petronius was obviously a satirical author, but he certainly is not our only literary source on luxurious objects used in banquets given by exclusive circles in the first century CE. Pliny the Elder, for example, provides us with prices and accounts of objects which wealthy members of the elite possessed.9 Archaeological evidence of silver tableware can also be dated mostly to the first century BCE or the first century CE.10 The greater amount of archaeological material preserved from this era could be related to the increase of silver tableware: from the first century BCE onwards such tableware was made in Rome, probably as a result of the wider availability of silver from Spain after its incorporation into the Empire.11

A political reaction to the social competition via extravagant dinner parties can be gleaned from the so-called ‘sumptuary laws’, which aimed at keeping luxurious dining and the use of foreign food below a strictly defined level.12 In 18 BCE, for instance, the Lex Iulia sumptuaria limited extravagant expenditure for dinner parties in an attempt by Augustus to keep gastronomic luxuria within acceptable boundaries. Our source for the Augustan law on luxury is Aulus Gellius (2nd century CE), who writes (2.24.14):

Postrema lex Iulia ad populum pervenit Caesare Augusto imperante, qua profestis quidem diebus ducenti finiuntur, Kalendis, Idibus, Nonis et aliis quibusdam festis trecenti, nuptiis autem et repotiis sestertii mille.

Lastly, the Julian law came before the people during the principate of Caesar Augustus, by which on working days two hundred sesterces is the limit, on the Kalends, Ides and Nones and some other holidays, three hundred, but at weddings and the banquets following them, a thousand. (Transl. by Rolfe 1927)

Sumptuary laws were undoubtedly difficult to enforce, but they show a tension between social competition in abundant dining on the one hand and a more restrained lifestyle prescribed by legislation on the other.

In philosophical literature we find the same tension, usually centered on the moral question of whether luxury was a vice or an acceptable part of life. The Stoic philosopher Seneca, living at roughly the same time as Petronius and Pliny, gives the following advice to his pupil Lucilius (Ep. 97):

Erras, mi Lucili, si existimas nostri saeculi esse vitium luxuriam et neglegentiam boni moris et alia, quae obiecit suis quisque temporibus; hominum sunt ista, non temporum. Nulla aetas vacavit a culpa.

You are mistaken, my dear Lucilius, if you think that luxury, neglect of good manners, and other vices of which each man accuses the age in which he lives, are especially characteristic of our own epoch; no, they are the vices of mankind and not of the times. No era in history has ever been free from blame. (Transl. by Gummere 1917)

Seneca, who came to Rome as a youth to study rhetoric at a time when he might still have encountered the older Livy, accuses even those who collect more books than they can read of ‘learned luxury’ (studiosa luxuria). In fact, in another text Seneca amusingly rebukes the famous, bibliophile historiographer (De tranquillitate animi 9):

Quadraginta milia librorum Alexandriae arserunt; pulcherrimum regiae opulentiae monimentum alius laudaverit, sicut T. Livius, qui elegantiae regum curaeque egregium id opus ait fuisse. Non fuit elegantia illud aut cura, sed studiosa luxuria, immo ne studiosa quidem, quoniam non in studium sed in spectaculum comparaverant, sicut plerisque ignaris etiam puerilium litterarum libri non studiorum instrumenta sed cenationum ornamenta sunt.

Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria; let someone else praise this library as the most noble monument to the wealth of kings, as did Titus Livius, who says that it was the most distinguished achievement of the good taste and solicitude of kings. There was no ‘good taste’ or ‘solicitude’ about it, but only learned luxury – nay, not even ‘learned’, since they had collected the books, not for the sake of learning, but to make a show, just as many who lack even a child’s knowledge of letters use books, not as the tools of learning, but as decorations for the dining-room. (Transl. by Basore 1964)

Livy was undoubtedly a very learned man, whose studium was not a matter of studiosa luxuria, but of looking for sources while writing his 142 books of Roman history Ab urbe condita. He was not himself part of the political Roman elite, but his talent and his literary project brought him in contact with the imperial court. With his history of Rome, he explicitly aims to instruct new generations of Romans with good and bad examples from the past.13 His method is annalistic, but at the same time he structures his books around major events of Roman history. In books 21–30, for instance, he covers the Second Punic War (219–201 BCE). He also treats important moralistic themes in connection with specific sets of events. Thus, book 39 starts with the year 187 BCE and right from the start an important theme is Roman disciplina militaris. He emphasizes how certain fierce enemies and rough landscapes, like Liguria, are capable of strengthening the military discipline of the Roman army, while other countries, especially Asia, are so soft and luxurious that they can only ruin it (39.1):14

Dum haec, si modo hoc anno acta sunt, Romae aguntur, consules ambo in Liguribus gerebant bellum. is hostis velut natus ad continendam inter magnorum intervalla bellorum Romanis militarem disciplinam erat; nec alia provincia militem magis ad virtutem acuebat. nam Asia et amoenitate urbium et copia terrestrium maritimarumque rerum et mollitia hostium regiisque opibus ditiores quam fortiores exercitus faciebat. praecipue sub imperio Cn. Manli solute ac neglegenter habiti sunt.

While these events were taking place at Rome – if, in fact, this was the year in which they did take place – the two consuls were at war among the Ligurians. This was an enemy almost made for sustaining Roman military discipline in the breaks between major wars, and no other province did more to hone the soldiers’ valor. Asia with its captivating towns, ample commodities from land and sea, a spineless enemy, and the wealth of its kings, enriched armies rather than tempered them. Discipline was particularly lax and slipshod under Gnaeus Manlius’ command. (Transl. by Sage 1936)

The laxity of disciplina militaris is explicitly attributed to Cn. Manlius Vulso, who in what follows will be portrayed as a negative exemplum. Thus in 39.6 Livy claims that Manlius’ triumph was the start of luxuria peregrina in Rome. In order to bring home the extent of that luxuria, he gives a detailed list of the spolia (39.7):

In triumpho tulit Cn. Manlius coronas aureas ducentas duodecim, argenti pondo ducenta viginti milia, auri pondo duo milia centum tria, tetrachmum Atticum centum viginti septem milia, cistophori ducenta quinquaginta, Philipporum aureorum nummorum sedecim milia trecentos viginti; et arma spoliaque multa Gallica carpentis travecta, duces hostium duo et quinquaginta ducti ante currum.

In the triumphal procession Gnaeus Manlius had the following spoils carried along: 212 golden crowns; 220,000 pounds of silver; 2,103 pounds of gold; 127,000 Attic four-drachma coins; 250,000 cistophori coins; and 16,320 gold Philippic coins. There were also large quantities of Gallic arms and spoils carried on wagons and fifty-two enemy officers were led before the chariot.15

Before taking a closer look at Livy’s claim that Manlius’ triumph was the start of luxury in Rome, let us sketch what we actually know about luxury, especially gastronomic luxury in Rome around the time of Manlius’ triumph, on the basis of literary and archaeological sources.16

3 The Start of Gastronomic Luxury: Roman Comedy, Laws and Archaeology as Testimonia

Livy had more sources at his disposal than we do about the year 187 BCE, but at the same time he mostly consulted political documents (Acta senatus) and other historiographers (e.g. Polybius), while modern scholars also extract historical information from literary texts, legal inscriptions and from material sources such as tableware, furniture and animal bones.17 In this section we want to give an idea of Roman gastronomic culture around 187 BCE without necessarily claiming that Livy had the same information at his disposal.

In the beginning of the second century BCE, Plautus wrote a comedy in which a certain Ballio finds a cook on the cook market (forum coquinum, a hapax legomenon) who explains why he is the only cook available. According to the clever cook, he is the last one left, not because of his bad quality, but, on the contrary, because of his superior skills which avaricious Romans are not prepared to pay for.18 This humorous dialogue shows a clever cook bragging about his qualities, but also plays with the prejudice about avaricious Romans (Pseudolus 800–807):19

bal: sed quor sedebas in foro, si eras coquos, tu solus praeter alios?

co: ego dicam tibi: hominum ego auaritia factus sum improbior coquos, non meopte ingenio.

bal: qua istuc ratione?

co: eloquar. quia enim, quom extemplo ueniunt conductum coquom, nemo illum quaerit qui optumus et carissumust: illum conducunt potius qui uilissumust. hoc ego fui hodie solus opsessor fori.

Bal: But why were you sitting in the market, if you were a cook, you alone beyond the others? Co: I’ll tell you: through people’s greed I’ve become a less desirable cook, not through my own nature. Bal: How so? Co: I’ll tell you. Because the moment people come to hire a cook, nobody looks for the one who is best and most expensive; they prefer to hire the cheapest one. That’s why I was the only occupant of the market today. (Transl. by De Melo 2012)

Another prejudice which lies at the base of some Plautine jokes is that Greeks are excessively focused on eating, drinking and luxury; in fact, the words pergraecari and congraecari (‘behaving like a Greek’, ‘playing the Greek’) in his comedies indicate just that.20

In the first half of the second century BCE we also find laws which restrict the number of guests for dinner parties (Lex Orchia of 182 BCE) and later also the amount of money which could be spent on a dinner party (Lex Fannia of 162 BCE). If laws were necessary already at this stage (cf. the later Augustan ones, which were mentioned above), the senate must have felt that large and luxurious dinner parties were somehow destabilizing society. As various scholars have argued, aristocrat families may also have considered the networking potential of such parties in the houses of the nouveaux riches to be a threat to their own political capital.21

The rise of a new class of rich families is probable if we consider the general increase in wealth of the Roman population from the second century BCE onwards, visible in archaeological findings and explainable through the import of products, money and people as booty and trade from the new provinces.22 The victory over Carthage, for instance, was not only the start of Rome’s expansion beyond Italy itself, but it also sped up processes of adopting Greek art and culture.23 Rome took over Carthaginian trade networks, making Romans the most important traders in the Mediterranean.24 With the successful campaigns in other regions that followed, the influx of objects, enslaved people and technical knowledge only increased. Especially the trading monopoly led to a huge amount of money reaching not only the senatorial elite in Rome, but the wider Italian elite as well.25

What the material evidence also shows is an increasing importance of culinary practices from the second century BCE onwards: we see changes in meat consumption, innovation in food production, and an increase of tableware, furniture and other objects related to banquets and food consumption.26 Three of these changes will be discussed below in order to show the development of gastronomy from different perspectives: animal bones, tableware and furniture. These examples lead to a twofold conclusion: the luxuria peregrina as described by Livy is part of a broader socio-economic development and in fact started later than Livy wants us to believe.

Animal bones tell us specifically about the consumption of meat and changes of consumption practices.27 Unfortunately the data for the city of Rome are scarce, because of the difficult excavation context for organic material. Other cities in Italy offer a fuller picture: Musarna in Etruria, for instance, shows an interesting development of meat consumption.28 From the mid-second century BCE onwards the consumption of young animals sharply increased, which points to the consumption of better quality meat. The consumption of pig and chicken increased as compared to the mix of sheep, goat and cow which was customary before. The consumption of young animals points to the availability of a high number of animals, because they were not needed for breeding or in the case of cows not needed for farm work. However, the ‘uselessness’ of pigs and chickens for ends other than consumption (work, wool, milk) could explain their high percentage of consumption at a young age. Other animals could be used for other reasons than the consumption of their meat so that they were eaten at an older age.29 Although this is only evidence from one site, and changes and developments are in many cases regionally or locally dependent, the general picture provided by zooarchaeological data points to increasing meat consumption in the Later Roman Republic.30

In contrast to animal bones which tell us what people consumed, tableware may inform us about the practice of consumption. Again in the city of Musarna a new type of common tableware becomes increasingly used from the mid-second century BCE: plates. Banducci interprets their appearance in terms of a change in food presentation and food consumption.31 The most common utensil for food consumption was the bowl from which one was able to consume liquid as well as solid food. Plates, however, were only able to hold solid food. The size of the plates is also relevant here. The larger ones were probably used only for the presentation of the food and not as actual plates to eat from. According to Banducci, the increasing use of bigger plates points to a higher interest in large groups eating together, where food was presented on plates from which all members of the group were able to enjoy shared dining.

In the context of food presentation and tableware, also monopodia are relevant.32 From reliefs and wall paintings it is known that these small pedestal tables were used for presenting food and drinking cups, plates and other tableware (fig. 9.1).33 This means that the entire group of guests could see them throughout the entire dinner. Evidence exists mostly from the beginning of the Imperial period, whereas earlier depictions of banquets from the Italian peninsula only rarely show monopodia or other smaller tables (fig. 9.2). This relief is one of the rare examples for the depiction of monopodia from before the Imperial period. The archaeological remains of wooden or metal monopodia can be dated to the first century BCE or the Imperial period,34 in other words, up to the time of Livy.

Figure 9.1
Figure 9.1

Fresco in the tomb of C. Vestorius Priscus, Pompeii, first century CE

Photo E.M. Moormann, with permission

The evidence from tableware and monopodia points to changes in the gastronomic practice in Italy. Food as well as tableware were presented to the guests of the banquets by the hosts in order to display their wealth. Not only the materials of the tableware or of the monopodia were expressions of their status, but also the exotic and elaborately presented food. Another presentation of food exists in floor mosaics of dining rooms, the so-called ‘unswept floor’, which means that food debris from meals is depicted on the floor, such as bones, shells and other leftovers. According to Pliny, the first one to design these mosaics was Sosos in Pergamum.35 Archaeological evidence of unswept floor mosaics is only known from the first century BCE, and was popular from that time onwards.36 These mosaics show to dinner guests which food to expect, but also advertise once again the wealth and cultural taste of the owner.

Although it may seem that only the elite experienced these changes in gastronomic practice, the occupation with food was part of a broader development. This is supported both by data on meat consumption and common tableware and by architectural evidence, which shows that the culinary practice of ordinary people changed as well. Most inhabitants of Italy would not consume their food on couches, but ate seated or even standing. Flohr has shown that from the mid-second century BCE the number of tabernae in Pompeii increased, which means that food was available everywhere, not only at home.37

In sum, the literary and archaeological evidence indeed points to developments in culinary practice and an increasing preoccupation with sumptuous dinner parties by elite circles from the second century onwards. Literary sources from later times, however, point to specific victories as the start of this development, blaming the massive import of Asian, African and Greek products. Often the year 146 is mentioned when both Corinth and Carthage were sacked, but Pliny the Elder mentions the year 189 BCE.38 It was possibly a topos in the early Empire to attribute the introduction of luxuria to a specific victory over wealthy enemies.39 Livy’s claim that general Cn. Manlius Vulso brought foreign luxury to Rome in 187 BCE is a precursor of the topos, but his choice of name and date seems to be his own. Making this claim fits the moral agenda of his historiography, with its good and bad examples from the past. High time to take a closer look at the passage.

Figure 9.2
Figure 9.2

Relief Pizzoli, first century BCE

G. Fittschen, D-DAI-Rom 84VW935A

4 The Start of Culinary Luxury in Livy 39.6

In book 39 Livy makes Manlius’ triumph into a historical turning point for Rome; it was precisely then that luxury made its irreversible entry into Rome, and the form this influx of luxury took were spolia. The objects taken from the East by Manlius’ soldiers had a profound and lasting effect on Roman society, if we are to believe Livy, who literally says (39.6):

luxuriae enim peregrinae origo ab exercitu Asiatico invecta in urbem est.

For foreign luxury was originally [lit. the origin of luxury] brought to the city by the Asian army.

In this section, we will look at Livy’s passage through a narratological and linguistic lens in order to find out more about his take on the introduction of foreign luxury in Rome, and especially the role of spolia in that process. We will focus on three elements in this passage: narrative structure, forensic elements and agency.

The passage begins, as many stories do, with a brief announcement of the episode to follow, typically with a perfect tense marking a narrator’s distant temporal stance and a hint of the ‘tellability’ of the story. The hint in this case is subtle, but unmistakable for an attentive reader (39.6):

Extremo anni, magistratibus iam creatis, ante diem tertium nonas Martias Cn. Manlius Vulso de Gallis qui Asiam incolunt triumphavit.

At the end of the year, when the magistrates were already elected, on March 5th Gnaeus Manlius Vulso celebrated his triumph over the Gauls living in Asia.

The word order (extremo anni in first position) and the use of the scalar particle iam (‘already’) point at the unusual timing of the triumph. After this announcement the story is told in full. What had already been marked as a tellable element, the late date of the triumph, is taken up as the starting point of an elaboration:

serius ei triumphandi causa fuit ne Q. Terentio Culleone praetore causam lege Petillia diceret, et incendio alieni iudicii, quo L. Scipio damnatus erat, conflagraret, eo infensioribus in se quam in illum iudicibus, quod disciplinam militarem severe ab eo conservatam successorem ipsum omni genere licentiae corrupisse fama attulerat.

The reason for his belated triumph was to avoid having to defend himself under the Petillian law before the praetor Quintus Terentius Culleo and being consumed in the flames of litigation directed against someone else, which had resulted in Lucius Scipio’s condemnation and because of that the jury would be all the more hostile to him than to Scipio because rumor had it that he had, in succeeding him, undermined by all manner of laxity the military discipline strictly maintained by Scipio.

The reasons for postponing the triumph (ne … diceret et conflagraret) must be those of Manlius, although this is not explicitly said and causa (‘the reason’) suggests an objective fact. The objective, reporting style makes the reader focus on the causal relations: Manlius’ laxity of discipline made him vulnerable in a law case and the realization of his vulnerability led him to postpone his triumph. Note how a historical event (the time of the triumph) is used to paint a negative picture of the protagonist by linking his motives to it, motives which can of course be no more than the historian’s reconstruction. The disciplina militaris is a recurrent theme in Livy’s history and here we hear about a complete undermining of military discipline by Manlius himself (ipsum), as rumor (fama) in Rome had it. The narrator adds that the lack of military discipline of Manlius’ army could also be seen in Rome every day:

neque ea sola infamiae erant quae in provincia procul ab oculis facta narrabantur, sed ea etiam magis quae in militibus eius cotidie conspiciebantur.

Nor was his reputation damaged only by what was said to have gone on in the province, far from people’s eyes; there was also, and more important, what could every day be seen among his soldiers.

In telling how the Roman people looked at (focalised) Manlius and his soldiers, Livy prepares for his next argument, the corrupting influence of the spolia, not only on the soldiers but on all Romans.40 At this point in the story the narrator openly starts endorsing, like a prosecutor, the rumor (fama) that Manlius is guilty of the laxity of discipline. And, going one step further, he broadens this idea in the sentence already quoted (luxuriae enim peregrinae origo ab exercitu Asiatico invecta in urbem est), which claims that the origin (origo) of foreign luxury lay with Manlius’ soldiers. This is the narrator’s evaluation, but he effectively pretends that his readers will agree by using the consensus-particle enim.41 His strategy here resembles that of forensic orators like Cicero, who often uses enim in passages where he tries to create common ground, i.e. the idea that speaker and addressees share the same ideas and values.42 The remainder of this passage has forensic elements in it, too, as we will see.

Manlius’ soldiers brought a number of Eastern objects to Rome and they are accused of having been the first to do so. Livy implicitly suggests that if they had not done so, Rome might have been saved from the corrupting impact of luxury:

ii primum lectos aeratos, vestem stragulam pretiosam, plagulas et alia textilia, et quae tum magnificae supellectilis habebantur, monopodia et abacos Romam aduexerunt.

These men were the first to bring to Rome bronze couches, expensive bed covers, tapestries and other woven materials, and (things then regarded as luxurious furniture) pedestal tables and sideboards.

This is a statement from the perspective of Livy’s own time, as the adverbs primum and tum indicate: they were the first (with hindsight) to introduce these things which were then considered luxurious but which (the implication is) now have become normal. This is a scathing remark about his own time, the time of luxury to come (futurae luxuriae), as he will say a few sentences later. The first thing to note is that he uses Greek words for the pedestal tables and sideboards (monopodia and abaci) and thereby also stylistically marks their Greekness. In Livy’s time the Greek provenance of luxurious, private objects had become problematic for certain politicians and philosophers, who wanted to discourage wealth competition and promote the idea of a Roman identity (see section 2). This explains why he is so keen to point out the origin of this bad habit, and attach to one identifiable person and one specific moment what actually was a long process.

Livy’s accusation of starting peregrina luxuria is clear, but the defense of his argument remains rather vague: we are simply told that ‘military discipline’ became lax and slipshod under Manlius, and the infamous actions about which people in Rome spoke (fama) and which could be seen (conspiciebantur) are not further specified. The soldiers’ behavior is in no way filled in with details and we are not told why they brought all these luxurious things to Rome (to use? to sell? to show?). However, the arrival of these objects had an enormous impact on Roman culture:

tunc psaltriae sambucistriaeque et convivalia alia ludorum oblectamenta addita epulis; epulae quoque ipsae et cura et sumptu maiore apparari coeptae. tum coquus, vilissimum antiquis mancipium et aestimatione et usu, in pretio esse, et quod ministerium fuerat, ars haberi coepta.

This was when girls playing harps and lutes made their appearance at dinner parties together with other entertainments to amuse the guests; and the dinners themselves began to be put on with greater care and expense. This was when the cook, for the ancients the lowest slave in terms of worth and utility, began to be prized, and what had been menial labor to be regarded as an art.

The repeated reference to a specific moment (tunc, tum) reinforces the idea of an origo when luxurious elements were added (addita) to the Roman dinner, more care and money was spent on dinner parties and cooks increased in value. Through the use of the passive voice, Livy suggests that no one could resist the attraction of harps and flutes and refined food: they were irresistible and ‘forced’ the Romans to change their habits. Note also the repeated use of coepta (‘began to’) which not only emphasizes, once again, the idea of an origin, but also indicates that these spolia did not lead to a temporary change in fashion, but to a long-lasting change in Roman gastronomic culture. The relevance of this story for Livy’s own time is also apparent in the next sentence where he compares the innovations (illa) of 187 BCE (tum) with future luxury (futurae luxuriae), portraying the innovations as seeds (semina) that would inevitably grow:

vix tamen illa quae tum conspiciebantur semina erant futurae luxuriae.

And yet the things that began to appear in those days were merely the seeds of the luxury yet to come.

The conspiciebantur here and earlier in the text stresses the visual attraction of the objects and this is an aspect found in many of the spolia passages in this volume. People who see the luxurious objects which were imported as spolia want to possess and use them themselves; in this sense the objects have agency.

5 Conclusion

When we combine Livy with other literary and archaeological sources, we see that his strong claim about the origo of gastronomic luxuria actually is a projection from his own times, since he lists objects and practices which he and his upper-class contemporaries were accustomed to. Although the second century BCE indeed appears to have witnessed changes in culinary practices, it is a gradual development which only peaked in Livy’s own time. All objects mentioned by Livy probably only became part of the Roman culture in the first century BCE since we do not have earlier evidence of most of them in the archaeological records. On the other hand, some of the changes which Livy says started with the events of 187 BCE, are not entirely new, but rather additions to or more expensive versions of existent practices. Examples are the bronze couches (lectos aeratos) or the entertainment at banquets (psaltriae sambucistraeque et convicalia alia ludorum oblectamenta addita epulis). Although archaeological evidence of couches is scarce, wall paintings and reliefs on tombs in various sites of Italy show their existence before 187 BCE,43 the decoration with bronze or with the entire production in bronze being an addition to the existing type of object.44 According to Faust, wooden couches with bronze decoration first start to appear at the transition from the third to the second century BCE.45 The same is true for the entertainment during banquets: banquets had been held in Rome long before 187 BCE.

According to Livy, objects from Asia imported in 187 BCE led to an increasing desire to own luxurious objects, which in turn changed gastronomic practice. But especially the example of meat consumption points to a more complex development of food consumption which took place on various levels. Also, foreign luxury objects did not just enter Rome as booty, but also through trade as we know from various literary sources.46 From the first century BCE onwards workshops even opened in Rome which specialized in imitations of specific types of popular objects.47 All these developments should be set in a bigger picture of social and economic changes in the Late Republican period. In general, it is true that Romans of the second century BCE recognized foreign objects and practices as useful new elements (the phase of objectification) and incorporated them in their daily culinary practices (phase of incorporation). But the idea that Manlius’ army was the first to bring luxurious items to Rome is rhetoric, not history, and Livy’s framing betrays his moralistic agenda. Book 39 conveys the lesson that a luxurious lifestyle makes a man and, even worse, a society, militarily weak. Livy’s scapegoat is Manlius from beginning to end. His triumph must explain the – problematic – presence of Greek objects and habits in Livy’s own day when luxuria had become contested in Roman culture, even though their use had already reached the last phase of cultural influence, namely transformation.

The foreign objects themselves are presented as irresistibly attractive and as such they seem to possess agency, which in a way exonerates those who cannot resist their temptation. An ‘original’ Roman identity is constructed in contrast to barbarians in the North-West and luxury-loving peoples in the East. The spolia proudly taken from the enemy turn out to be poisonous objects for Roman society. Whereas, in terms of cultural appropriation, the archaeological picture shows adoption, Livy tells his readers a different story, as in most cases discussed in this volume: one of rejection and one loaded with moral meaning.

Acknowledgements

This publication has benefited from the Anchoring Innovation program which has given us the time to write and the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues from various disciplines. We are especially thankful to Irene de Jong and Miguel John Versluys for their constructive feedback on an earlier version of this chapter. Anchoring Innovation is the Gravitation Grant research agenda of the Dutch National Research School in Classical Studies, OIKOS. It is financially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (NWO project number 024.003.012). For more information about the research program and its results, see the website www.anchoringinnovation.nl.

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1

See the Introduction to this volume, pp. 1–68.

2

See Gruen 2011: esp. 343–351, for a discussion and examples of the idea that Romans were often open to foreign influences. A remarkable exception can be found in the Roman reaction to the Bacchic cult in 186 BCE as described in Livy book 39. For Roman stereotypes of non-Romans, see Woolf 2011, although his study is mostly concerned with the Roman approach to non-Romans in the West-Roman Empire.

3

Recently, such an interdisciplinary approach to the third and second century BCE of Roman history has also been advocated by Padilla Peralta and Bernard 2022.

4

We will speak about Greek cultural influence and not distinguish between Asian and Greek in this chapter, as it is usually through Greek culture that also Asian elements are adopted by Romans. See Padilla Peralta and Bernard 2022 for the broad presence of philhellenism already in the third century BCE.

5

For the concept of Anchoring Innovation, see Sluiter 2017.

6

References to luxurious meals in Roman literature can be found in, for instance, Cic. Ver. 2.3.68 and 2.5.33; Sen. Ep. 16.9 and 144.10; Plin. Ep. 1.15 and 9.36, but see also the satires of Juvenal (Sat. 5) and Petronius’ Satyricon. In general, see Gowers 1993.

7

E.g. Grüner 2006, 2009; Stein-Hölkeskamp 2019: 95.

8

Kron 2015: 166.

9

Plin. Nat. 33.143; Weis 2003: 377–381; Stein-Hölkeskamp 2005: 146–154.

10

E.g., silver treasure from Boscoreale or from the Casa del Menandro, Pompeii; Mielsch and von Prittwitz und Gaffron 1997; Guzzo 2006.

11

Weis 2003.

12

For a discussion of leges sumptuariae and their social function, see De Ligt 2002 and McGinn 2008.

13

About Livy’s moralistic view on historiography many studies have appeared, among which Chaplin 2000 (about the relevance of exempla in Livy’s history for his own time); Feldherr 1998 (about the impact and recognition of visual elements on his contemporary audience); Van Gils and Kroon 2018 (about linguistic evidence for moral highlights in his historiography); De Haan 2012 (about Livy’s history being more about his own time than about the past he writes about); Levene 2010 (about overarching moralistic themes in the books about Hannibal); Pausch 2019 (about the moral framing of the Punics as fraudulent); Walsh 1961 (about Livy’s aims and sources in general).

14

The idea that certain landscapes bring forth certain types of people is very old and can already be found in Herodotus: ‘a soft country breeds soft men’, says Cyrus (9.122); and cf. 1.155 and 7.102.1.

15

Translations of Livy 39 in this and following examples are all by Sage 1936.

16

The moral theme of luxuria (and avaritia) in Livy is apparent also in other parts of his history, for instance in 7.25.8–9. See also Evans 2011 and Levick 1982.

17

See Luce 1977, Oakley 2019 and Roth 2006 for Livy’s use of his sources.

18

Christenson 2020: ad loc. remarks that we have no evidence that there was something like a ‘cook market’ apart from this remark in Plautus.

19

McDonnell 2006: 70 suggests that Roman avarice was probably a contemporary topic, since Plautus makes jokes about it and Polybius (31.26.9) mentions the generosity of Greeks in contrast to the Romans.

20

See McDonnell 2006: 68.

21

See e.g. De Ligt 2002.

22

On economic growth in the last two centuries BCE see, e.g., Scheidel 2007. On the archaeological data, e.g., Wallace-Hadrill 2008.

23

E.g. Zanker 1976; Versluys 2013.

24

E.g. Roselaar 2019.

25

In combination with an intensification in agriculture, the introduction of silver coins and other economic developments, summarized by Maschek 2018: 221–226. See also Gabba 1988.

26

Summarized by Maschek 2018: 220. Banducci 2013: 348–351.

27

See King 1999; MacKinnon 2004.

28

Summarized by Maschek 2018: 220. Banducci 2013: 348–351.

29

See MacKinnon 2018: 152.

30

Kron 2015, Kron 2017; MacKinnon 2018: 157.

31

Banducci 2013: 250, 269, 350.

32

On furniture in Roman houses, summarized by Dickmann 1999: 281–287. Monographic studies: Richter 1966 (furniture by the Greeks, Romans, Etruscans); Mols 1999 (wooden furniture of Herculaneum); Faust 1989 (fulcra); Klatt 1995 (bronze and silver tables); Feuser 2013 (monopodia).

33

E.g. relief of Amiternum (Maschek 2018: 215–221); various wall paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum (Dunbabin 2003: 52–71, pl. IIII); fresco in the tomb of C. Vestorius Priscus, Pompeii (Mols and Moorman 1993–1994). On depictions of food in general, O’Connell 2018.

34

Mols 1999; Klatt 1995; most of the monopodia in Italy were produced from the first century CE onwards, Feuser 2013: 171–172.

35

Plin., Nat. 36.184.

36

Moormann 2000.

37

Flohr 2018: 145.

38

Asia primum devicta luxuriam misit in Italiam, ‘it was the conquest of Asia that first brought luxury into Rome’ (Plin. Nat. 33.148–149).

39

Plutarch describes how the sack of Carthage brought luxuria into Rome (Plut. Marc.); see Pollitt 1978 on this passage and Carey 2006: 78–79 for a discussion of the topos, especially in Pliny the Elder.

40

See De Jong 2014 for an introduction on focalisation and other narratological concepts.

41

See Kroon 1995: 171–209 for a semantic and pragmatic analysis of enim.

42

See Allan and Van Gils 2015 and Kroon 2021 for common ground analyses in ancient Greek and Roman texts.

43

E.g. Nielsen 1998: 105.

44

For couches, see Richter 1966: 105–109; Faust 1989, 1994.

45

Faust 1994: 573.

46

E.g. Lazzeretti 2014: 97–100.

47

See e.g. Hölscher 1994; Maschek 2018: 218.

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